Alberta Business Marketing

Preventing Elder Abuse Is A Priority

Many countries are now making the elimination of elder abuse a priority.  The UK Government has a website, which encourages all to Recognise and report elder abuse.  Elder Abuse comes in many forms that may cause harm to older people. It includes intending to harm, harming without intent and the neglect that leads to harm.  The website notes that elder abuse includes actions relating to financial or material matters, including theft from the abused person, fraud, or coercion regarding wills and any financial transactions.  Another website has been set up to promote ‘Action on Elder Abuse’.

One would hope that all this is not just to encourage citizens to take action but would also set the standard for how government policies should apply to elders.  This is blatantly not the case for the Frozen Pensions Policy that is applied to some expat pensioners, if they are resident in the Commonwealth rather than in other foreign coutries. 

The UK Government  Frozen Pensions Policy

If you decide to move to Australia, Canada, South Africa or one of 170 other countries, your basic UK state pension won’t increase annually, as happens if you are resident in the UK. It will be permanently frozen at the date you retire or when you arrived in that country, and it will never increase, no matter how rich or poor you are, or how much you’ve paid in National Insurance contributions.   

However, if you move to an EU country, the US, or one of a seemingly random list of other countries including Israel and the Philippines, your state pension will increase in line with inflation exactly as if you had stayed in the UK.

The International Consortium of British Pensioners has been working for many years to persuade the UK government to remove this unfair inequity, which affects over 550, 000 pensioners. Their new website, pensionjustice.org, describes the unfairness of the present policy and the severe hardships it creates for some who have been heroes in defending the values for which the UK stands.

How The UK Government  Frozen Pensions Policy Hits One Centenarian

When you look at some of the people affected by this unfair policy, your heart bleeds.  An extreme case of this ‘abuse’ was documented in Australia where a 100-year-old woman has a UK state pension frozen at just £6 a week.

Is there an expat pensioner who is getting a worse deal than 100-year-old Annie Carr? Mrs Carr, who was born in Sunderland and emigrated to Australia in 1970 to join her only daughter, receives a UK basic state pension that is frozen at just £6.12 a week. Yet if she had stayed in the UK, or emigrated to a country such as Spain or the US, she would be getting up to £107.45 a week. Instead, she is out of pocket by more than £5,000 a year.

That treatment is clearly abusive.  The UK Government may insist that it is merely applying the legal arrangements that have been set in place.  However that is hardly an acceptable excuse for such treatment.  There are undoubtedly many other cases that are similar to that of Mrs. Carr.

UK Expat Centenarians At Least Deserve The Royal Treatment

After exhausting the legal process, the International Consortium of British Pensioners has now decided to appeal directly to the Queen in her diamond jubilee year.  Mrs. Carr may well have received a telegram from the Queen on attaining her 100th birthday.  How much more appropriate it would have been to right the wrong that has been perpetrated on her and on so many others for so many years.

---

Copyright © 2012 The Other Blokes Blog. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact admin@otherbb.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Does The UK Government Give A 100-year-old Expat Pensioner Elder Abuse

Technorati Tags: elder abuse, expat, Frozen Pension, pensioner

Related Posts

• December 4, 2011 -- UK Frozen Pensions – the senseless inequity continues (0)
• May 1, 2012 -- Pension Justice For UK Expats (0)
• October 4, 2009 -- UK State Pension Values Confirm The Frozen Inequity (2)
• November 5, 2008 -- Frozen UK Pensions – European Court of Human Rights – Decision (1)
• August 13, 2008 -- 10 Downing Street Twitters While UK Pensioners Freeze (6)

Tags: elder abuse, expat, Frozen Pension, living, pensioner, society
Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

The International Consortium of British Pensioners continues its tireless battle for the consciences of the UK government to seek upratings for all Ex-pat pensioners. A new website, pensionjustice.org, describes the unfairness of the present policy and the severe hardships it creates for some who have been heroes in defending the values for which the UK stands.

Here is a short video that sets out the facts of the present situation:

The core issue is almost unbelievable:

If you decide to move to Australia, Canada, South Africa or one of 170 other countries, your basic state pension won’t increase annually, as happens in the UK. It will be permanently frozen at the date you retire or when you arrived in that country, and it will never increase, no matter how rich or poor you are, or how much you’ve paid in national insurance contributions.

However, if you move to an EU country, the US, or one of a seemingly random list of other countries including Israel and the Philippines, your state pension will increase in line with inflation.

Pension Justice or Pension Fairness and Morality

In some ways choosing PensionJustice.org as the website domain is unfortunate.  The Guardian article clearly sets out the situation as viewed currently from a strictly legal point of view by Her Majesty’s government.  That might be interpreted as justice but it is far from fair.  The effect on some of Britain’s finest could even be seen as immoral.

British pensioners who live in any of the 30 countries that make up the European Economic Area – or Switzerland – get annual increases to their basic state pension.

These so-called "upratings" are also paid to pensioners living in 16 countries or territories with which the UK has a reciprocal social security agreement requiring increases to be paid: Barbados, Bermuda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Israel, Jamaica, Jersey, Mauritius, Montenegro, the Philippines, Serbia, Turkey, the US and Macedonia. No other countries get the increases.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office says: "Our position on this issue has been endorsed by the European court of human rights. We do not apply living increases to the pensions of those living in [countries such as] Australia. Our policy in this area has remained the same since 1955, and we believe it is the fairest system possible for those who live and pay tax in the UK."

In 1955 UK state pensions became payable worldwide. But the agreements signed with countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand during the 1950s didn’t include upratings.

Note that this official position states that their policy is fair for those who live and pay tax in the UK.  By direct implication, they are confirming that they know that this is not fair for many expats who have chosen to live in the wrong country.

Getting That UK Sense of Fair Play Involved

The legal profession is notorious for sticking to the niceties and so perhaps it’s time to go to a higher authority to get fair play on frozen pensions:

After exhausting the legal process, the International Consortium of British Pensioners has decided to appeal directly to the Queen in her diamond jubilee year. In a letter sent to her last month, 73-year-old Jim Tilley, who moved to Australia in 1971 and is honorary chairman of the British Pensions in Australia group, said: "We pray that … you will see reason to request your government to be less intransigent about this issue."

---

Copyright © 2012 The Other Blokes Blog. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact admin@otherbb.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Pension Justice For UK Expats

Technorati Tags: equity, expat, fairness, justice, morality, Pension, UK

Related Posts

• December 4, 2011 -- UK Frozen Pensions – the senseless inequity continues (0)
• May 8, 2012 -- Does The UK Government Give A 100-year-old Expat Pensioner Elder Abuse (0)
• December 23, 2011 -- UK Frozen Pensions Working Group Set Up (0)
• April 12, 2010 -- Frozen Pensioners Fight On For British Fair Play (0)
• October 4, 2009 -- UK State Pension Values Confirm The Frozen Inequity (2)

Tags: canada, equity, expat, fairness, justice, living, morality, Pension, society, UK
Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

This is a guest post by Eliza Morgan.

Branding is a very precise process and is a very important aspect of marketing.  It is also very difficult to perfect. Your company or product’s brand is critical to success. It is with this image and concept that your customers will recognize your product or service and judge whether it is right for them or not.

Internet marketing creates an even greater need and opportunity for brand cohesion for a company and brand identification among consumers. However, there are times that marketers have to bite the bullet and realize that a brand isn’t working as it should, however well known it may be.

Making the choice to alter or scrap a brand is difficult, particularly if it has been around for some years. Much of successful branding relies on consistency and persistence. However, if a brand really isn’t working and needs a change, there will be warning signs. Look for these three signs that your brand might need a makeover.

The Brand Does not Reflect New Products or Services

The point of a company is to grow and expand. There are numerous instances where a company starts in one direction and then grows and evolves over time. When this happens brands can encounter some problems. If your brand no longer reflects your products or services wholly it may be a good time to reconsider your branding campaign. You want to allow your brand to grow and evolve as your company, products, and services do. Yes, consistency is important. But you will be doing no one any good by keeping an old brand attached to a new company offering. Evaluate how appropriate your brand is for what your company offers. Does it communicate the entire picture? Is it too narrow now? These are the things you need to look into.

You Have a New Target Audience

Your brand is directed towards a particular target audience. You want to communicate what your company is and what you offer in a way that specifically speaks to your desired customer base. However, just as your products can outgrow your brand, so also your target audience can evolve.

Sometimes when a company starts out, we aim too narrow with our targeted audience. A brand can become too narrow for the audience that we are hoping to reach once your company’s market begins to grow and expand. One of the worst things you could do with your branding is exclude certain people and groups from your marketing campaign. Evaluate your brand to make sure that it includes everyone you wish to reach. If you find that your brand is too narrow or you are not actually reaching your target audience, you should definitely consider making some adjustments.

Customers See Your Brand Differently Than Intended

Another issue that can easily occur with branding is that it is not perceived the way you intended it. This can be one of the more difficult things to deal with and recognize. You put a huge amount of effort into creating a brand that you think communicates exactly what you want about your company only to find that your audience sees it completely differently.

One way to find out if your brand is having this issue is by very simply asking your audience. Survey your target audience about your brand. Find out how they really see you and what your brand says to them. See what they call your brand. Do they have a different or shorter name for your brand? What do they identify with most about your company? These are important questions that your audience can answer so that you can create a stronger more accurate brand. If you find that your target audience has a different perception of your brand, you should consider altering things.

Author Bio:This is a guest post by Eliza Morgan who is a full time blogger. She specializes in writing about business credit cards. You can reach her at: elizamorgan856 at gmail dot com.

---

Copyright © 2012 The Other Blokes Blog. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact admin@otherbb.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

3 Signs it is Time to Change Your Brand

Technorati Tags: brand, niche, offering, target

Related Posts

• August 5, 2011 -- Award Winning Wine Labels (1)
• October 18, 2009 -- VTEA a special needs acronym (0)
• March 26, 2009 -- Alberta Tries Brand Marketing (0)
• November 12, 2008 -- Brand Canada – Aw Shucks (0)
• October 9, 2008 -- There Is No Space In Brand (0)

Tags: brand, Business, niche, offering, Target
Posted in Marketing | | Comments Off

ABC News tells us that Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is suing a Montreal Eatery for $2.72M.  He is concerned about alleged defamatory comments he says were made about him.  Perhaps you’re not as famous as Gordon Ramsay but you too should be concerned about online personal branding.

For Gordon Ramsay, his legal action states that:

Negative and critical public comments regarding the plaintiff could have the effect of decreasing the commercial value of his name and any commercial ventures associated with it.

For those of us who are less famous, the impact of negative comments may be less significant but they can potentially have a more significant effect on our future well-being.  Conversely it is important that you establish an online presence that will help you in your business and community activities.

If you need help in doing this, you will find reputation.com, the online reputation management company can help.  As they say:

We establish a distinct online presence and help you monitor your improvement — you can track articles, stories or other mentions of you, your most visited pages, how many people are searching for you and the location of those people, the top results for your name and your overall popularity ranking over time.

In some ways, building your personal brand is the easy part.  You then must monitor what is happening in cyber-space to ensure that no one is trying to undermine your brand by giving critical and damaging assessments of you.  That monitoring process requires an ongoing effort that is much more than just Googling your name from time to time.

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter can help information to go viral and explode across the Internet.  If you know about anything that could undermine your personal brand, then it is better to know about this as early as possible.  You may then need to take counter-offensives to nullify the adverse comments.  Here again reputation.com can work with you on this.

You will have some presence on the Internet whether you like it or not.  It may be one that is very supportive to your other endeavours or it may be weak or even negative. Rather than ignoring this new reality, it is much better to evaluate how you rate on the Internet and take actions, however minimal they may be, to neutralize any damaging information.

---

Copyright © 2012 The Other Blokes Blog. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact admin@otherbb.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Protect Your Personal Brand

Technorati Tags: defamation, Gordon Ramsay, reputation

Related Posts

• October 22, 2009 -- Charity Donations Improve Corporate Reputations (0)

Tags: defamation, Gordon Ramsay, reputation, search, social media
Posted in Marketing | | Comments Off

This is a guest post by Angelita Williams.

Traditionally internet marketers use the power of key words in articles, titles, and metadata descriptions in order to get high search engine rankings. But there is now a fresher, more attractive and most importantly not as “obvious” SEO technique that is making its way in cyberspace—infographics. Just like the name sounds, infographics are illustrations (graphics) that artistically display a set of data or statistics (info). Because they’re fun and manage to showcase what some may consider a “boring” set of stats in a new light, they often go viral.

For example, the popular American technology news website Mashable regularly generates infographics which just so happen to find themselves on popular social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest — since people share infographics to friends and repost , SEO is completed with minimal effort. Of course, your infographic has to be good before it makes its rounds in cyberspace. To learn how to make one, continue reading below.

Artistic Presentation

What makes consumers interested in an infographic in the first place are the images and vibrancy of the illustrations. Typically infographics are drawn in a cartoon, caricature-style (or just something that is readily exaggerated). Other times infographics are made of drawn out maps or even just beautifully drawn words. Internet marketers typically hire graphic designers for the job, but there are a few sites that can help you create a similar effect for free, such as Tweet Sheet, StatSilk and Wordle that are designed to help artistically-challenged people.

Set of Stats/Data

Of course, no matter how good your illustrations are it would mean nothing if they weren’t used to accompany a set of stats. Think of a concept that would have stats readily available, like what’s the iPhone really costing you? The true price of an emergency room visit. Blenders throughout the ages. Or whatever other out -of-the-box topic that relates to the website you’re originally linking back to, which leads us to our final tip.

Link Back

Lastly and by far most importantly, you need to have a link back to the original site you’re trying to promote—otherwise, the infographic can be shared a thousand times and it wouldn’t increase your search engine rankings in the very least. So add the link back at the bottom of the infographic as well as in the metadata description. Also allow the infographic to be able to be shared directly on social media sites with one click of a button to encourage more reposts.

Author Bio:  This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7@gmail.com.

---

Copyright © 2012 The Other Blokes Blog. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact admin@otherbb.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Can Infographics Boost SEO Efforts?

Technorati Tags: art, data, infographic, stats

Posts from the Archives You May Enjoy

• September 2, 2005 -- The Montreal Game Summit (0)
• January 6, 2009 -- Make That Elevator Speech A Twitter Intro (2)
• May 4, 2005 -- Ergonomic Chairs – made in Quebec (1)
• February 26, 2011 -- Friday: TGIF or DAB (0)
• September 9, 2008 -- Stand Up, Walk Or Run To End Breast Cancer (3)

Tags: art, data, google, infographic, search, stats, Web design
Posted in Marketing | | Comments Off